Sookie Audio Books

True Blood Video

Sookie short stories

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Courtney Love makes a not-half-bad at reinterpreting the last weeks of her life before being accidentally shot in the head during a William Tell parlor trick by her famed writer husband William S. Burroughs.

Season two of the HBO original series “True Blood” started last week, and you should really be watching it. Not just for the romance between vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), and not just because it’s about vampires. Make no mistake: “True Blood” is not your little sister’s “Twilight.” It’s got action, intrigue, plenty of steamy scenes, Southern charm, creatures of the night, Anna Paquin, a guy that turns into a dog, and enough blood splatter to make a Jackson Pollock painting jealous.

You should be watching it, and this is why:

1. The supernatural. Vampires have come out of the coffin. They walk among us (at night). They drink synthetic blood at our bars. They’re dating the girl next door. And they’re not alone: voodoo witchdoctors, psychic waitresses, and people who turn into animals are all regular cast members.

2. Bon Temps, Louisiana. When’s the last time you heard of a vampire story set in the deep South? New York City or Sunnydale, California, maybe. Transylvania, definitely. But Bon Temps, Louisiana? Shoot son, that’s what I call original! In a small town where everyone knows everyone, when strange things start happening around Merlotte’s Bar, rumors spread quicker than wildfire. Plus, the setting makes for plenty of Southern humor and Cajun accents.

3. The opening credits. Jace Everett’s country single “Bad Things” will have you singing along and getting down with your bad self every week.

True Blood, the HBO series, is infinitely more complex. The show is clever, satirical and yet deeply involving. It is full of humor and yet its characters have tender and emotional scenes. I find it very engaging and fun to watch. Obviously it has too much sex and violence for very young teens. But for an adult audience, it is an amazing development in the vampire mythology, putting the vampires right into the mainstream of the modern world. I like the show. I think the vampire Bill is the usual metaphor for the outsider and the sensitive outcast who suffers. He's excellent.

Daybreakers hyper-stylized world of tomorrow in is run by vampires, while humans are on the verge of extinction. Faced with imminent starvation, vampire Ethan Hawk turns to Willem Dafoe and the last remaining humans for help.

We're going to go ahead and call it: Daybreakers looks fantastic. Pay no heed to Dafoe's cheese-ball lines and look at the intricate futuristic world-building here. There are blood stations, blood banks, and oh my yes — that's Dr. Grant as a vampire. It's been so long since we've had a solid vampire epic, and we dearly want this to be Fifth Element good, which is the feel I'm getting from it.

The Crescent City and the fictional setting of HBO's "True Blood" cast similar shadows.

They're both places where you can comfortably change your shape, howl at the moon and acquire unexplained bite marks. The trip from suburban Maryland Avenue in Metairie to Bon Temps is a different kind of journey.

Sam Trammell, who plays the Sookie-struck roadhouse owner Sam Merlotte on the saucy vampire drama (Sunday, 8 p.m.), traversed that route via West Virginia, Brown University, the New York stage, prime-time TV and feature films. Born at Ochsner Medical Center in 1971 while his father was in medical school at Tulane University (both his mother and father earlier attended LSU), Trammell bounced around with his family early on but they landed long enough on Maryland Avenue for him to compile glowing childhood memories.

"I remember it being pretty big," he said during a recent telephone interview. "I went back a few years ago and it's just so tiny. I remember playing kick-the-can right before dusk. It was such a great neighborhood to grow up in. I also remember going to Mardi Gras parades and just yelling at the people, 'Give me something, mister!' That was what I was taught to yell. I think that's what all the kids yelled back then. I remember the doubloons and the beads. It was really fun, really exciting."